The Pansies are in!

I've had a hard time convincing myself to let go of the profusion zinnias even though I knew it was time. After a little encouragement (thank you Tina!) I decided Saturday would be the day to pull them up and plant pansies. Of course, I didn't know Saturday would also be a cold windy day-too windy to plant. But determined to start the process, I headed out to a local garden center to at least buy pansies. I drove up expecting a full house like I usually find, but I had my choice of parking spots as I was the only one there. The people who work there were not even outside, they were inside putting up Christmas lights!

I found the pansies and proceeded to pick out flats. I am rather late in buying them, but they still had a pretty good selection. I bought 5 flats: 3 with yellows, reds and oranges, and 2 with purple. I like to mix pansies using those colors. I headed inside to pay and warm up. I guess I felt the need to explain why I was out on a cold day to buy pansies and chatted away while the owner checked me out. I told him I was late because I couldn't pull up the zinnias I bought there back in the spring, so really it was his fault I was out today. He just stared at me, handed me my ticket and said "pull 'um up!"

He did offer to help load them in my car, but I declined and he didn't argue. I brought them home and put them on the patio for shelter from the wind hoping Sunday would be a better day to plant. And it was, only I had church obligations until late afternoon. That was okay, it had warmed up, the wind was not blowing, good time to work in the garden. I asked my son who happened to be there to please move the flats from the patio to the front. Of course first I had to pull up the zinnias, so I took a deep breath and starting pulling. I pulled fast and tried not to look at the flowers as I went. As I worked my son walked around front carrying 2 flats of pansies. "What are you doing?" he asked. I pulling these up so I can plant THOSE I said. He stood there staring when hubby walked around the corner. "What is she doing?" he asked. My son said "she is pulling up still alive and blooming flowers to plant these!"

I thanked them for the comments and told them to please go inside and take grand dog who at this point was trying to get in the bag of blood meal.

And they did go inside and leave me to work. It was getting really late afternoon by that time. You know that time of day that is not still light, but not dark yet. It was quite and peaceful as I finished planting. I looked at the front beds and tried to imagined how pretty they would be in spring.

So I can check one more thing off my to-do list for fall. I still need to re-plant the wheel-

barrow. I decided to make some plans as I walked in back to put my spade up. I think I want to use kale and pansies, maybe something else. However, I already see one problem--the coleus is still really, really pretty. I hate to pull it out!